Pasta

It’s said that in the 13th century Marco Polo brought noodles, made of flour and eggs or water from China to Italy. This isn’t true.

When the Greeks founded the city of Naples around the 3rd century BCE, the people in the area already had a dish called “macaria” , a sun-dried mash of barley flour and water. There was mention of a pasta-like dish called “laganum” or “laganas,” a known predecessor of lasagna. The Roman politician Cicero, who lived from 106 to 43 BCE, mentioned he had a passion for laganas pasta.

Archaeologists now believe that the earliest types of pasta or noodles were actually created in Central Asia, thousands of years before Marco Polo ever came to the region. It traveled westward from there by way of nomadic Arab tribes to Europe. In any case, pasta is one of the most popular foods in the world today.